Parashat Vayigash, Part 2: Never Feel Death
According to the midrashic text The Aleph Bet of Ben Sira, Jacob gave Serach a blessing saying: “This mouth that informed me about Joseph being alive will not taste the flavor of death.” Interestingly, Serach appears alive in other midrashim that take place in time periods centuries later in the Torah and Tanakh, and even as a character in Rabbinic texts, carrying on this idea that she became immortal.
Yonatan ben Uziel, in his Aramaic translation/commentary of the Torah, has a slightly different take, suggesting that she was able to walk into the Garden of Eden “without having to die first.” So maybe, the gift was to choose when to physically die?
Another strange legend is that she lived until the 12th Century CE when she died in a fire in a Persian synagogue, where she was buried. In various folklore, some supernatural beings can only die by specific means, such as fire, and this seems to tap into that.
Among other midrashim about her are that due to her long life, she was able to tell Moses where Joseph was buried when they left Egypt (Talmud Sotah 13a) and that she prevented a........© The Times of Israel (Blogs)





















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